Apple is reassigning marketing staff to focus on sales of 2018 iPhones: report

Apple has been struggling with sales when it comes to their 2018 offerings the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and the iPhone XR. Though the company is straying away from owning up to it, the Cupertino giant is experimenting with marketing strategies it rarely uses to ramp up sales.

A customer looks at Apple's new iPhone XS after it went on sale at the Apple Store in Tokyo. Image: Reuters

According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple executives have moved some marketing staff from other projects and switch to focusing on iPhone marketing in October, roughly a month after the iPhone XS went on sale and in the days around the launch of the iPhone XR.

A person close to Apple on the matter described it as a "fire drill," and a possible admission that the devices may have been selling below some expectations. The person obviously asked not to be identified discussing private strategy changes.

When has Apple ever before advertised an iPhone at $300 less than it actually costs by using an asterisk? pic.twitter.com/DTNLrOCxly

Ever since the move was made, Apple has begun a number of aggressive trade-in offers across their US website that have temporarily reduced the cost of some of its latest iPhones. A move which is unheard of from the likes of Apple, a company that been raising the prices of its phones every year to increase revenue.

The report also points out that since the start of October, Apple has lost roughly a fifth of its market value. Apple has also since stopped reporting iPhone unit sales, sparking worry that its most-important product is no longer growing.

As of now, Apple seems to be in overdrive mode, doling out trade-in offers. Pointed out in another report by 9To5Google, Apple has updated its homepage marketing with more detailed descriptions of the features inside the iPhone XR and the iPhone XS. Apple.com would earlier show one-line marketing slogans with links beneath them to 'Learn More'. The webpage which has been updated only recently, now lists the highlighting features of the phones explicitly, like for example, the best-in-class battery life of the cheaper iPhone XR.